Terror Like This!

The laboratory door slowly opened, and a chilling aura washed over them. Pale fluorescent tubes illuminated everything.

The air was filled with an indescribable mixed scent, a blend of disinfectant, chemical reagents, and the aroma of some unknown biological entity.

Inside the laboratory, towering bio-reactors resembled giant glass coffins, cultivating all sorts of bizarre creatures.

Some emitted a faint blue glow, while others, with their tentacles, swayed slowly in the liquid.

In the corners, rows of gene sequencers and analyzers blinked with red indicator lights.

"Francis, where are you going? We're already in the middle of a fight, aren't you coming?" Leman Russ's voice came through the vox.

"Ugh~ You've really gotten me into trouble! I'm trying to escape. You guys have hundreds of thousands of warriors, but my Soul Drinkers don't have that many. I'm not willing to sacrifice them."

Hearing Francis's words, Leman Russ's old face flushed. "I don't know why, I just can't remember."

"I'll come find you guys later. I've already messed up all their warships. It should be easy for Old Man to deal with Horus now. Just make sure they don't get desperate and break their backs."

Leman Russ: "...This is a crucial moment, I can't get away."

"Oh! No wonder. Demons invaded just now. So Old Man was too busy with other things and didn't protect my warships~"

Leman Russ could clearly feel a chilling sensation emanating from the Terra Imperial Palace behind him, like the feeling of getting colder the more you bask in the sun.

Gulp~

"Francis, you can speak your mind. If you badmouth your father like this, he can hear you."

Hearing Leman Russ say this, Francis became even more smug and said, "Am I afraid he'll hear? Even if Old Man spoke to me himself, I'd say the same thing!"

"I was undercover behind enemy lines, how dangerous was that! And you guys just exposed me! Luckily, I wasn't caught, otherwise I would have returned to Old Man's embrace long ago."

Francis was clearly very dissatisfied with this exposure; it had disrupted his original plan.

"...Let's talk about business. Did you do something that angered everyone? Magnus said Perturabo and he stopped fighting halfway through and withdrew, as if they received Horus's orders to hunt you down."

???

Francis looked shocked. "Are they crazy! They should be attacking Terra, why are they chasing me?"

"I'm not the Emperor! If they want to fight, they should fight the Emperor, why fight me?"

Leman Russ: ...

Not long after, the communication ended. Francis fell into deep thought. Had he really done something too excessive?

"Ahem~ Primarch, if you don't stop soon, the thing inside will deactivate."

Fabius coughed lightly. His genetic makeup seemed flawed, and he hadn't been fully modified.

His skin was pale, even sickly, possibly due to prolonged exposure to the radiation and chemicals in the laboratory. Deep wrinkles were etched on his face.

He wasn't burly, but his muscles were abnormally developed and twisted, covered in various wounds and scars.

The surgical tools strapped to his back seemed to sway gently as if they had a soul.

Hiss~

The cultivation pod's hatch was opened, and as the mist dissipated, a piece of pale flesh appeared inside, pulsing.

"Don't worry, experiments. They always waver between failure and success. We can always try again, it's not like we lack the resources," Francis quipped.

Fabius gave a wry smile and said nothing, his eyes fixed on the cultivation pod with fervent intensity.

Xenos gene-modding experiments were restricted in the Imperium, and he couldn't even tell what creature's genes these were from.

"Old man, are you looking for a way to achieve immortality? Your body doesn't look like it can hold on much longer."

Hearing this, Fabius turned and chuckled. "Heh heh, I can't help it. I can't compare to you Primarchs. My body has congenital genetic deficiencies, and I really can't live much longer. I do want to live longer."

The moment he turned his head, Bang!

The creature in the cultivation pod lunged at the glass in front of him, startling Fabius.

It wasn't so much lunging at Fabius as it was lunging at Francis, which caused him a moment of confusion, as this thing was made using his own genes.

Francis had extracted some encrypted genes from his own genome and then randomly generated this thing.

Just as Francis was about to retrieve it himself, Fabius stopped him, saying, "This won't do, it's too dangerous. We don't know its properties yet."

"Rushing to operate it now could lead to an experimental accident!"

Francis gave him a strange look. "So?"

"So. Let me! I'm not afraid of danger! Heh heh~" Fabius stared at the flesh like a pervert, almost pressing his face against the glass.

Hiss~

The glass cover released, and Fabius immediately pounced. Unfortunately, the creature squeezed right past him, like a fluid.

It then lunged straight for Francis, and with a plop, it stuck to his arm.

"Primarch, how can you be so careless! This is too dangerous! Let me!"

"Phew~ Why is it so tough! I can't pull it off~"

Saying that, Fabius forcefully tugged at the piece of flesh. A blush appeared on his gaunt face, and even the two mechanical arms behind him seemed eager to join in.

Just as they were about to touch flesh, they all recoiled.

"My mechanical arm has a soul???"

Fabius quickly let go. He hadn't expected his own mechanical arm to gain a soul. What if it turned on him one day?

Meanwhile, Francis tried to accept the piece of flesh, and soon the flesh on his arm truly reshaped itself into whatever he desired.

When he reached for the nearby meltagun, the flesh actually merged with the gun. At the same time, words related to "Randan" appeared in his memory.

"Ah! Ah! Gene-tech can fuse inorganic matter? What kind of creature's genes are these? I've never heard of them!"

Fabius's eyes widened as he circled Francis's arm, muttering to himself.

"This makes no sense! This is unscientific!"

"I've never heard of any creature possessing this kind of technology. If there were, how could I not know about it?"

"Could it be an extremely rare mutation? Hiss hiss No, that's not right either~"

"Primarch, how exactly did you do this?"

Francis, who had just snapped back to reality, was also full of confusion. Under his conscious control, the mechanical parts of his arm could still change.

From a gun to a sword, then from a sword to a hammer, from a hammer to a rice cooker, and even from a rice cooker to a prosthetic limb!

Francis: ...

Fabius: ...

"Cough cough cough~ On the path of gene-tech, you still have a long way to go. Do you understand?"

Francis's words struck Fabius like a bolt of lightning. His body trembled uncontrollably. He had thought he was still the pioneer of gene-tech in the Imperium.

But he never expected! Never expected! That he had only just stepped across the threshold of this field.

"Primarch! I'm following you from now on!"

Fabius was too excited to speak properly and finally managed to blurt out this sentence.

Francis turned and walked out of the laboratory, leaving behind a handsome silhouette as he said, "Learn slowly. We will recreate the technology of the Dark Age!"

Hearing this, Fabius became even more excited.

"You're so right! We will reforge the light of Dark Technology!"

Chh~

As the door closed, Francis returned to his resting place.

Francis was also bewildered. "Hiss hiss~ This really isn't right!"

"Is this something I could create?!"

This thing was extremely dependent on him. Although it didn't have a complete consciousness, Francis felt uneasy carrying it around.

His intuition told him that he needed to hide this thing.

No! He should destroy it...

Meanwhile.

In the vast, boundless cosmos, the Iron Blood, a Gloriana-class Battleship belonging to the Fourth Legion, floated like a slumbering iron behemoth in the dark abyss of space.

Its hull shimmered with a cold metallic luster, as if reflecting the faint light of the surrounding stars, showcasing its extraordinary aura and power.

The bridge was the heart of the Iron Blood, located at the very front of the warship.

The Captain and his deputies sat upright, their gazes sharp, tense, and orderly.

"What did you say?"

"You want me to intercept the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels, and clear your path to Terra?"

"And simultaneously go to Mars to deal with Francis and persuade the Adeptus Mechanicus to rebel with you?"

Perturabo's voice was deep and powerful. He wore a half-mask helmet, revealing only his sharp, burning eyes. Flames of rage burned within them.

His chest heaved violently, and the breastplate of his Power Armour let out a low rumble.

"What the hell do you take me for?"

The terrifying aura made the Astropath afraid to even breathe, and he quickly explained, "The Warmaster said it, not me."

Perturabo angrily punched the wall, creating a large hole in the ship. This was him holding back.

"What else did Horus say?"

The Astropath swallowed, hesitant to speak.

"Speak! What else did he say!!"

A massive shadow fell over the Astropath, and he trembled as he finally spoke.

"The Warmaster also said that he trusts you!"

Hearing this, Perturabo took a deep breath and then quietly walked out.

About a few minutes later.

The hull began to emit violent shaking sounds! It was as if a beast was tearing apart the battleship!